The Stevensville Town Council gave the go-ahead at its October 8 meeting to Brian Osowski of AMKO Advisors to generate an analysis and proposal to refinance the town’s water and sewer bonds. Osowski works for a registered municipal advisory firm that started in Fargo, North Dakota but has recently expanded into Montana.
He told the council that his company has recently helped the city of Red Lodge, Montana refinance its USDA bonds for water and sewer and were able to save the town about $2 million in its water bond payments and another $1 million by refinancing the sewer bonds.
According to Osowski, the deal works pretty much like a homeowner refinancing their home when interest rates drop low enough to make it worthwhile. He said the costs of refinancing are rolled into the refinancing package so there is no up-front cash cost to the town. The savings are achieved by making the same payments which pays off the loan early, creating the net savings.
Osowski said he ran a preliminary analysis of the Town of Stevensville’s bonds and thought the town could save about $700,000 in the sewer bond re-finance and another $200,000 on the water bonds. The sewer bonds, he said, would be paid off 12 to 13 years early and the water bonds would paid off a couple of years early.
He told the council that if the town agrees, he would proceed to put a package together and put it out to bid. The actual bids received may not match his estimates, but the town has no obligation to accept the bids. He told the council that they could refuse the deal at that point if they didn’t like the bids.
“If I didn’t think that these were realistic savings, I wouldn’t be knocking on your door about it,” said Osowski.
Councilor Bob Michalson said it sounded like they had nothing to lose by trying.
Mayor Brandon Dewey said that was his reasoning as well.
The council agreed that Osowski should proceed and work with the town’s administration and come back with a proposal based on the bids.
The first agenda item at the meeting was listed as a workshop on amending council rules. Mayor Dewey said it was getting hard to schedule meetings and he thought they could conduct a Committee of the Whole meeting as a “workshop” on the regular agenda.
Michalson and Councilor Dempsey Vick hesitated because the intent of the COW was to have all four of the council members present. Holcomb was absent at that evening’s council meeting.
Michalson said that there were other issues more pressing to discuss and he would be OK with dropping his request about potential rule changes. Councilor Jaime Devlin said she felt the same and that the Purchasing Policy was something that demanded their attention right now. She moved to dismiss the COW request to consider changing council rules and the motion was approved 3-0.
The Council adopted fees for the Parks and Recreation 2020 Scarecrow Festival. A standard Scarecrow entry fee is $25. The fee for 8th grade entries and younger is $15.
The Council approved a Public Works General Labor/Operator job description that does not require any special certification such as some positions require in the water and sewer departments. The job consists in providing parks, tree, weed, cemetery, streets and swimming pool maintenance services, and assisting in the operation and maintenance of the water treatment plant and wells, and wastewater plant, along with water mains and sewer mains, and performing a variety of technical tasks relative to assigned areas of responsibility.
Mayor Dewey told the council, “We need sort of a jack-of-all-trades who can step in as needed.” He said the hours would be flexible and could vary greatly. He said it was an attempt to adapt to the situation in which employees might be sporadically quarantined.